Amazon Fire TV is an Android-based (Fire OS) set-top-box that contains a very powerful ARM processor (that can even handle some of the more heavy XBMC skins). Fire TV stands above some of the other Android-based offerings due to Amazon's strong product support and because it contains more remote friendly versions of Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and other video service clients, making it a good pairing with XBMC/Kodi.

Amazon in addition recently released Amazon Fire TV Stick as a low cost version in a HDMI-stick format, and while the Amazon Fire TV Stick also uses the same Android-based (Fire OS) software platform it contains less powerful ARM processor hardware it should still technically provides all the same video playback features and capabilities as its big brother, the Amazon Fire TV, at least as far as running XBMC/Kodi on it.

SPMC - SPMC is a fork of XBMC (currently built on Gotham) and sometimes contains special fixes that are not yet in the official builds. Users who are unsure of which version to use should normally try out the official XBMC/Kodi builds first and see how it runs, and if they have issues then try SPMC.

2 installing

Kodi can be installed on any Fire TV or Fire TV Stick. Root is not required.

3 Bypassing Amazon Home

See: HOW-TO:Bypass Home on Fire TV - This page describes various methods to bypass the normal Fire TV home menu when the home button is pressed on the remote. This includes launching Kodi when the home button is pressed, using an alternative launcher all together, and other methods for both rooted and unrooted Fire TV devices.

4 Launch Kodi from Recent on the FTV Home Screen

This process allows Kodi to show in Recent on the FireTV Home Screen. Note that Kodi will not show in the main Apps menu, only Recent.

Amazon only approves Kodi for Android mobile devices, not the FireTV. Therefore it still needs to be installed and upgraded via sideloading.

4.1 Procedure

4.2 Troubleshooting

Before Kodi shows in Recents, it must be recently run. If you haven't used Kodi yet, launch it from Settings, Applications first.

You may need to restart your FireTV and sync again.

Some users have reported that they needed to de-register and then re-register their FireTV.

5 Launch Kodi from an Existing App on the FTV Home Screen

There is a alternative way to invoke Kodi from the FTV Home Screen using Llama. This method uses a “sacrificial” app that you have installed from Amazon that you will use to access Kodi. The app can be anything you have installed but don’t need to use; however, some apps behave better than others (some apps will enter a loop when exiting Kodi). One app that has been tested and works well for this purpose is “Classic TV”.

The advantage of this method is that using the sacrificial app you have Home Screen Access to Kodi and you can exit Kodi to the FTV Home Screen just as you would any other FTV app.

In your NEW EVENT select ADD CONDITION then, from the Menu select 'Active Application' and select 'Choose App’. Scroll through the list of apps until you find “Classic TV” and select this app. Doing this should return you to the Events Menu.

Next, select ADD ACTION and select 'Run Application' from the Menu list. From here, select whatever the name of your Kodi build is. That should create your event. At this point you can also name your event to distinguish it from others.

Now when you start the “Classic TV” app from the Home Screen, it should automatically open XBMC. Feel free to experiment with other apps from the FTV app store. Just be aware that some will loop back and re-start Kodi when you try and exit Kodi to get back to the FTV Home Screen.

6 Launching Android Apps within Kodi

In Gotham builds, it is possible to launch Android Apps from shortcuts on the main menu.

It is recommended to use the Confluence skin, go to Programs, then Android Apps and favorite any applications you would like to launch from Kodi.

Skins like Amber allow you place custom shortcuts on the main menu to these favorite items.

In Frodo builds you can only launch these apps from going into Programs -> Android Apps. They will not launch when put onto the main menu.

NOTE: For skins that allow you to add "Favorites" to the main menu, if you add an App to favorites then uninstall that App you should make sure to remove that App from favorites first. If you uninstall an App that you have added to favorites and don't remove it from favorites first it may cause XBMC to crash.

If this happens, reinstall the App you uninstalled, then launch Kodi and remove it from favorites. This will stop Kodi from crashing.

7 Copying files

7.1 Copy userdata settings (optional)

Run XBMC at least once to initialize the userdata folder on the Fire TV

Copying from PC to Fire TV

Copy files to Fire TV userdata folder using adb push <local> <remote>

For example, to copy advancedsettings.xml from your local folder to your Fire TV XBMC userdata folder:

These work perfectly well with Amazon Fire TV and XBMC including play, stop, pause, fast forward, rewind, next chapter, previous chapter etc. The all important CONTEXT MENU button can be activated by pressing the Right Mouse Click; Home (to Amazon Fire TV home) = WWW; Back = ESC. The only button/function that will not work of course is voice search, which you'll need the original Amazon Fire TV remote for.

If programming a Harmony One (IR) remote to go with this MCE remote:

1. Add device: Computer. Media Centre PC. Chinavision. CVSB-983.

2. Customising buttons: all buttons work pretty well with default button settings. There are only three buttons you would need to set yourself:

8.3.3 USB Gamepads

Logitech F710 Wireless Gamepad (uses a small USB dongle)

Xbox 360 wired gamepad

Xbox 360 wireless gamepad works if you use the Wireless Gaming Receiver for Windows

8.3.4 Flirc

The rewind, fast forward, and play/pause keys on the Fire TV controller operate the same as a keyboard's media keys. Use the "Media Keys" controller in the Flirc application to set these on your remote. Netflix and Pandora on the Fire TV (and possibly other apps) do pick up the other media keys such as stop. XBMC also picks up these keys.

Esc can be used as the back button. Remapping XBMC's back to Esc would be required to use one button for both commands.

≣ Menu (the button to the right of the Windows key on the right side on a keyboard) works as the Fire TV's menu button and does not have the issues Ctrl+Esc has. Ctrl+Esc usually results in duplicate keypresses and will sometimes act as just Esc. At this time the Flirc GUI does not have a button to map "Menu" on the "Full Keyboard" controller, but on the command line flirc_util record_api 0 101 can be used.

Using the "Flirc, XBMC" profile in Harmony is optional. Using it will get you started with XBMC commands faster, but you will probably also need to change some of the keypresses, which can be done without changing profiles.

8.4 Other bluetooth devices

It should be possible to pair other bluetooth controllers and remotes to the Fire TV. Most of these devices will show up as a keyboard type input.

8.4.1 Bluetooth Gamepads

Nyko PlayPad Pro

Ouya Controller

9 Uninstall XBMC

From the Fire TV Home screen, select Settings

Select Applications

Find and select your XBMC installation (it may be named "XBMC", "SPMC", or "XBMC on OUYA")

Select Uninstall

Alternatively, you can do the uninstall over ADB with one of the following commands.

OUYA

adb uninstall tv.ouya.xbmc

SPMC

adb uninstall com.semperpax.spmc

XBMC

adb uninstall org.xbmc.xbmc

10 Video guide

11 Known issues

VC-1 / WMV9 encoded videos is currently not hardware decoded in XBMC/Kodi on the Amazon Fire TV box.

12 Random notes

Feel free to place various notes, tips, and links here. As this section of the wiki gets more organized, those notes will be properly sorted. Consider this like a dumping ground for when you're not sure where to put something.

The USB port works with keyboard and mice. If you root the Fire TV then you can also use it for other things such as storage.

Debug information in the Fire TV's Netflix app can be accessed by pressing Ctrl+Alt+⇧ Shift+D.

The FireTV will not go to 'sleep' when XBMC is the active application. In the Gotham builds, you may set the Power Saving -> Shutdown Function to Quit, and choose any time between 5-120 minutes. This will Exit the application after being idle, which allows the FireTV screensaver to run (the screensaver should pop up right when XBMC exits; test this by using the 5 minute Quit timer). This also appears to function correctly and allow the device to sleep even if you are using the Llama settings to always keep XBMC running.